Richard Lamm's Campaign Trail: Here And Beyond

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, July 9) -- Few were surprised by former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm's announcement for president today. After thrilling Reform Party members at their California convention in June, the three-term governor turned political consultant openly flirted with a presidential run.

Though Lamm withheld an official commitment, aides close to the Coloradan said last week he had made his decision, and word leaked that Lamm spent Monday on the phone planning campaign trips to California and Minnesota and arranging Secret Service protection for his family.

Who Is Dick Lamm? Though virtually unknown outside his homestate, Lamm has honed his articulate if occasionally strident calls for downsizing and privatization of federal entitlement programs. His dire predictions of impending economic calamity earned him the nickname "Governor Gloom" during his three terms in the Colorado statehouse between 1975 and 1987.

Since leaving the Denver statehouse, he has lectured widely and worked as a Democratic consultant while heading the Center for Public Policy at the University of Denver. Fed up with President Bill Clinton's "pandering to the elderly" on Medicare, Lamm is demoralized by the Democrats but says both parties are beholden to special interests and cowardly avoiding tough choices to balance the federal budget.

"In my opinion, you've got to look at all the sacred cows," he said in a recent interview. He would gradually privatize Social Security while hacking savings out of Medicare that make GOP proposals seem timid. He also wants dramatically lower levels of immigration, and in a break with Perot orthodoxy, favors free trade while opposing the Texan's proposal to require a national referendum before raising taxes.

Whither Ross Perot? One of the big question marks for Lamm's candidacy (there are many) is Perot's intentions. Does the Texan want the top spot for himself? If not, will he endorse a Lamm candidacy? So far, the maverick businessman has remained steadfastly coy on Lamm, only allowing that he is pleased with Lamm's interest in his party.

Then, of course, there's that pesky money problem. Lamm so far has raised just $6,000, and election law prevents Perot from pouring his private fortune directly into Lamm's candidacy. The Federal Election Commission has yet to rule on whether anyone but Perot can use the $30 million in public funds that the Texan would get as a result of his strong 1992 showing as the Reform Party's candidate.

Perot ultimately must defer to Reform Party members, and one million of them are this week receiving official ballots that list just two names -- Perot and Lamm. Party members can write in a different name if they choose, but only one other, former New York gubernatorial candidate and millionaire businessman B. Thomas Golisano, has expressed interest in running.

Meanwhile, strategists for the major parties are busy spinning. Republicans say that Lamm, as a Democrat, would draw more from Clinton than likely GOP nominee Robert Dole. Though polls conducted in May and June have shown the Perot voter in 1996 may tilt Democratic, campaign polls for Clinton suggest that, as in 1992, the same undecided and independent voters needed by Republicans would be lost to Lamm.

Richard Lamm's Campaign Trail: Here And Beyond

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